The Writing on the Wall
by Malhearst
Summary: A dangerous mission to the tomb of Mekh and a falcon hieroglyph out of place. Your favourite Bootstrap Weasley is on the case.
**Author's Note** : Written for QLFC (Season 4, Round 3). Position: Keeper for the Falmouth Falcons

 **Word Count** : 2249 in MS Word, 2248 in Gdocs

 _Write a story with the prompt 'falcon' within 2001-2250 words_

Bill was acutely aware of the desaturated colours of Egypt. Inside the Throne Room, the morning sun coloured the northwestern wall a burnt orange, while the part still in shadow had a marine-grey hue to it. It was beautiful in its own, exotic way, and Bill had to remind himself that it was spring; something he'd always associated with lush, green leaves and buds on rose bushes.

"Are you listening to me?"

"Yes, Sélim," Bill sighed, "You don't want me to go. It's too dangerous."

"None has ever returned from the curse of Mekh!" the Northern Egyptian exclaimed in his own, funny accent.

"That's why I've been cross-referencing the hieroglyphs on the wall with the obelisk at Memphis!" Bill extended his hand towards the work desk before indicating the tableau behind it.

"Bah!" answered his friend, who'd started pacing in front of him.

Reaching out, Bill brought their foreheads together softly. "I will be careful."

"Ah, Master Weasley!" a voice from the other end of the room greeted him. Bill, taking a moment to look Sélim in the eyes, let go and waved his friend away. Returning to his work table, he didn't look back until he heard the sound of someone tripping.

"Watch out!" he called, throwing a quick protection spell over the sand model on the floor, depicting the tomb of Mekh. Realising he'd forgotten to add their last discovery, he waved his wand, watching the sand dance as it formed the preparation room in the southern corner.

Satisfied, he looked up. "Gamblenok. What brings you?"

"Master Weasley, I'm pleased to introduce Miss Mariam."

Bill took a step forward to shake the hand of a short girl with a black, pageboy haircut and a gap between her front teeth. "Hello."

"Hey," she replied curtly before drawing back into her former position─feet wide apart, hands behind her back─with military precision.

"She will be the expedition's iconology expert."

"So… fylfots?" Bill let his eyes linger on the girl before his gaze travelled to the dwarf. "Really, though, no thanks, I can do─" While he was talking, their guest was walking up to his desk, flipping through his papers, and Bill looked back twice in surprise. "─do this. Hey!"

A quick sidestep brought him to her side, his fingers extending downwards to pin the documents to the table protectively. In response, she simply pointed. "You made a mistake."

Grabbing the paper, Bill said, "Look, it's nothing personal, it's just─"

"You're only taking men." She approached Gamblenok.

"Yes! I mean, no, not like that─" Straightening, he pinched the bridge of his nose. "This will be dangerous, and I don't know that you can take care of yourself."

Mariam, he saw, exchanged a glance with Gamblenok. The dwarf nodded at her, to which she responded by setting into a sprint towards Bill. Quickly jumping out of the way, he watched as she set off on his desk, pushing off from one wall towards the southern corner. There, she tensioned her legs against each wall and stayed. Looking back triumphantly, she then did a backflip and landed on the flagstone floor.

"I've also trained spellwork under Ahmed H. Zewail."

Bill, looking at Gamblenok, smiled. "I guess you're hired."

They departed the next day, but not before Bill had taken a picture of the tableau. The temple and sepulchre of Mekh was only half an hour's ride away, but for some reason, they all felt parched when arriving.

"Don't drink all of your water," Bill warned the team.

Sélim, who had a penchant for good food and drink, looked at Bill sadly. "Bootstrap, please."

"Bootstrap?" Mariam immediately chirped. "Why's he called Bootstrap?"

"No reason," Bill said quickly, coughing. He gave Sélim a warning scowl.

Despite their disagreements, Sélim chuckled, "Because he always falls in them."

As they entered the sepulchre, Bill could hear Mariam saying to herself, "Bootstrap Weasley."

Going in, Bill was starting to expect trouble. He had, after several tomb-raiding adventures─and a few Muggle film interpretations of his work─learned that Egyptian defences were widely dependent on superstition, and as such, he'd come to expect certain obstacles.

At one point, he stopped them all. Besides Mariam and Sélim, Bill had brought a mysterious man who'd been the only volunteer to guide them, and Bill had to hold out an arm to brake the man's steps.

"What is the meaning of this?" their guide replied angrily in a heavy, Egyptian accent.

Bill, not answering, fished for something in his leather satchel and brought out a small trinket, which he placed on the floor. What turned out to be a chipped teacup began waddling forwards to Mariam and their guide, Mahmoud's, great surprise.

Smiling, Bill almost told them it'd been sent to him by his father; the teacup, a paranoid, old witch's former companion, had been charmed to alarm her if her tea had been poisoned. Arthur Weasley, having confiscated it during work, had sadly been forced to give it up by an angry Molly Weasley. Thus, Bill had come into possession of the piece.

"Oranges!" the teacup chimed.

Mariam rolled her eyes. "We know. It's Bootstrap's favourite fruit, isn't it?"

Bill nodded at Sélim, who cast an Egyptian charm. The previously invisible gas turned a sickly hue of yellow and dissipated before their eyes.

"Moving on," Bill said, hiding a small smile at the look on Mariam's face.

As he started walking, Mariam sidled up to him. "Aren't you the Curse Breaker?"

Bill, who was busy looking over his notes, didn't look at her as he said, "Yes, but everything up until that point is Sélim's job."

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see her giving Sélim a once-over. "So that's why he's here."

"Yes," Bill answered, "That's why."

Turning to him with a curious look, she then asked, "Have you figured out the curse yet?"

"Almost."

Reaching for the picture, she said, "Let me try."

Bill pulled it out of her grasp. In an offended tone, she said, "If you won't let me do my job, why am I here?"

This made Bill look at her with a grin on his face. "Because I need someone to save Sélim."

"At least tell me what you're having trouble with."

Bill, considering her, finally held out the transcript from the Throne Room, a quick Lumos lighting up the paper between them. "It looks as though the falcon hieroglyph foretells the coming of Anti, but down here, there's an allusion to the underworld and godhood."

"Well," Mariam answered, "the pharaoh was often synonymous with the gods, and the underworld is most likely the threat."

"No." Bill shook his head. "I don't think so. See, Anti was a pharaoh in Lower Egypt, but according to the Palermo stone─"

"Mekh was not," she finished his sentence. "Well, what other interpretations are there?"

Bill shook his head. "I don't know, but that falcon is placed wrong."

They walked for quite some time, in and out the different chambers; their guide was laconic but effective. Bill had even suggested charming a red string to follow them, but their guide had refused. Only a few times did they run into dangerous tasks such as pressure-triggered darts or moving walls, but they finally arrived at a site which made Bill believe they were close.

In front of them, the floor was mapped out in squared letters, and to their right, the wall was filled with horizontal cartouches. Bill walked closer, Sélim and Mariam soon joining him.

"They can't be cartouches." Bill brought up a hand. Squiggly lines in the right side of a cartouche denoted royalty, but there were none here. Allowing himself to stroke one of them, he brushed away the sand. Behind him, something groaned.

All three spun around to see the opening ahead starting to fall.

"You idiot!" Mariam exclaimed.

"Quickly, what's the word?!" Bill said frantically.

"It has to be Ptah, look!" Mariam pointed towards one of the cartouches that did contain a line, but Bill pointed to another. "No, it's Mekh!"

"But─"

"There's no time! Mekh makes the most sense, come on!" Bill rushed her towards Sélim and Mahmoud, who'd already placed themselves.

Holding their breaths, they all watched as the door came to a laborious halt. Sighing with relief, Sélim and Bill laughed, and Mariam bent forward to rest her hands on her knees.

Then everything set in motion again. The walls were shaking, the door came down, and the letters they were standing on started to move up or down while all other squares fell away into a dark abyss below them.

Bill immediately yelled, "Mariam, Sélim!" pointing to the fat man balancing on the balls of his feet. With a quick nod, Mariam jumped down upon one of the letters that hadn't disappeared, set off towards the edge, pushed away, grabbed Sélim and did a powerful backflip.

"Levicorpus!" Bill called, directing his wand towards the two of them, making sure they both landed safely. Looking around for Mahmoud, he tried not to panic when there was no sight of him. Instead, he jumped, grabbing hold of something that reminded him of Devil's Snare, and flew through the air towards the others.

"Where's Mahmoud?" Mariam shouted in the chaos.

"Don't worry about him," Bill said, "Just run!"

He was only a few steps behind them when he tripped in his bootstraps.

"Bill!" he could hear Mariam call.

Bill only shrieked, "Run!"

As he rose to his feet, he could see Sélim grabbing her by the arm and leading her into the next chamber. Then, setting off, Bill ran all that he could. The door was closing on him, slowly, steadily, the gap narrowing until he could only stoop, squat, then crawl.

At the last second, he slid through the sliver, hearing a heavy _thunk_ behind him as the door closed.

"Whew," he said, getting to his feet and dusting off the sand. It wasn't until then that he noticed the scene.

Mahmoud, having dragged down the cloth in front of his mouth, was standing with a wand in each hand, pointing them at Mariam and Sélim. Sélim was holding up his hands, and Mariam was pointing her own wand at Mahmoud.

Reflectively, Bill grabbed for his own wand, but came up empty-handed.

"Ah ah ahhh," Mahmoud─or whatever his name was─said, suddenly without accent, dangling Bill's wand from his fingers.

"Who are you?" Bill said angrily.

"The name's Rookwood, and I'm here to retrieve the map to Atlantis for the Dark Lord."

"Atlantis?!" Mariam and Bill exclaimed.

"Hah! You don't even know what you're here to find!"

While Rookwood was talking, Bill had time to survey the room. In front of them, blocking the way, lay the front of a stone Sphinx, its mouth open. A single file of light came from above, and twelve round columns held up the roof.

"Yes, the Atlanteans built some astonishing things, don't you think?" Rookwood indicated the statue and continued triumphantly, "And now, thanks to you, the knowledge they had will soon belong to Lord Voldemort!"

Laughing maniacally, Rookwood started towards the Sphinx.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Sélim said, but Rookwood ignored him, sticking his arm into the mouth.

At first, nothing happened. Then a piercing scream was heard.

 _"Which bird must you not fear?"_

"Arghh, help me! Hor─Horus was a falcon! A falcon!" Rookwood cried. A second later, a crack was heard, and Rookwood fell to his knees with a scream of terror, cradling his stump of an arm. Shrill shrieks were heard from above, and the light through the opening was blocked. Looking up, Sélim, Mariam and Bill saw nothing until the flock of birds came near.

"Take cover!" Bill shouted. Mariam and Sélim went left while Bill dodged right, behind a column. The birds, going after the easier target, immediately tore apart Rookwood.

"What do we do?!" Mariam squealed.

Bill, thinking for a moment, took out the picture of the Throne Room. Looking closely, he studied the falcon hieroglyph they hadn't been able to decipher.

"By Merlin…" he said to himself. The hieroglyph they'd thought was Anti revealed itself to be the almost interchangeable hieroglyph for Seker, a falcon god of the Memphite necropolis with a hawk for a head.

"You were right!" he called, "Mariam, it was Ptah!"

"So what?!" she bellowed back.

Bill, instead of telling her, ran towards the Sphinx, ignoring the protests of his friends, and stuck his arm in. One of the birds, still clawing at Rookwood, managed to scratch him, but he was otherwise unscathed.

"Which bird must you not fear?" the Sphinx repeated.

"A hawk!" Bill shouted. The birds, suddenly quiet, fell away, and Bill could feel something being pushed towards him. Closing his hand around it, he drew out a vial.

When the others reached him, he felt weak.

"Bill?" Sélim asked. Bill held out the arm.

"Poisonous birds." Bill smiled. "Of course."

"What's that?" Mariam indicated the vial.

"Oh this? Not a map."

"Let me see," she demanded, uncorking it and dripping it on his arm.

Bill thought he heard someone whispering _Phoenix tears_ as his vision blurred. He'd almost passed out when a chamber opened to a shining light. Someone came, hoisting him up, and with wobbly steps, they entered their final destination. A round orb was placed on a pedestal, and Bill, breaking away from his human crutch, took a step forward.

As he touched the orb, the light spread upwards. Bill smiled; it was a map.


End file.
